Rodman Agrees to 1-Year Deal With Bulls

Forward Dennis Rodman, who threatened to retire unless the Chicago Bulls gave him a $22-million, two-year deal, agreed to a one-year contract with the Bulls Friday.

Dwight Manley, Rodman’s agent, said the deal was worth significantly more than the $6 million a year the Bulls had offered and slightly less than the $11 million a year Rodman, who earned $2.5 million last season, demanded.

“We’re done,” Manley said. “He’s ecstatic to be back in Chicago. Both sides compromised and both sides are very happy.”

Team officials declined comment.

“Until Jerry [Krause, general manager] tells me a player is signed, the Bulls will have nothing to report,” spokesman Tom Smithburg said.

Rodman, 35, averaged 14.9 rebounds last season while winning his fifth consecutive rebounding championship.

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Kentucky forward Antoine Walker, the sixth pick in the 1996 NBA draft, signed a $4.6 million, three-year contract with the Boston Celtics.

The Celtics also signed swingman Greg Minor to a multi-year contract.

Tennis

Sixth-seeded Francisco Clavet beat fellow Spaniard Felix Mantilla, seeded third, 6-4, 6-3, to move into the semifinals of the Grolsch Open at Amsterdam.

In other matches: unseeded Dennis van Scheppingen upset fifth-seeded Carlos Moya of Spain, 7-6 (11-9), 6-2; Younes El Aynaoui of Morocco beat Herman Gumy of Argentina, 6-4, 6-3, and Adrian Voinea of Romania defeated Slava Dosedel of Czechoslovakia, 7-6 (9-7), 7-5.

Football

Wide receiver Randy Moss, who lost scholarships to Notre Dame and Florida State after being convicted of beating a fellow high school student in Charleston, W.Va., will play for Marshall University this season.

Moss, 19, who was jailed earlier this summer for violating his probation by smoking marijuana, was released from prison last week.

Florida quarterback Bobby Sabelhaus, who redshirted last season, has left school.

Jurisprudence

A former Dallas policeman was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to charges that he tried to have Cowboy wide receiver Michael Irvin murdered.

In a plea bargain that ends a spectacular scandal of sex, drugs and murder plots surrounding Irvin, Johnnie Hernandez cut a deal with prosecutors. In exchange for pleading guilty to bribery and solicitation of capital murder, he was given two six-year prison terms, which will run concurrently.

Hernandez, 28, had faced a possible maximum sentence of 99 years. He was arrested in late June after trying to hire an undercover narcotics agent he believed was a professional hit-man to murder Irvin.

Police said the plot was hatched because Irvin had allegedly threatened to kill Hernandez’s girlfriend, Rachelle Smith, who was a key prosecution witness in his recent cocaine trial.

Irvin reached a plea-bargain deal with prosecutors July 16 and was fined $10,000, sentenced to four years’ deferred adjudication and ordered to do 800 hours of community service. He was later suspended for five games by the NFL.

Former New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor was ordered to perform 60 hours of community service, get drug counseling and undergo random drug testing by a judge in Myrtle Beach, S.C., as part of an out-of-court settlement of a charge of trying to buy crack cocaine.

Taylor, who was charged May 3, faced a two-year prison term if convicted.

A fugitive captured in Mexico after nearly three years on the run faces an involuntary manslaughter charge in Dallas in the death of Mary Jane Reoch, a national cycling champion struck and killed by a speeding pickup while training.

Texas Attorney General Dan Morales announced the capture of Mario Nambo Lara, 21, in connection with the September, 1993, mishap.

Reoch, an 11-time U.S. Cycling Federation national champion, was giving a student a training ride when a truck allegedly driven by Morales crossed into her lane and hit her head-on.

Miscellany

Fox Broadcasting Co. paid $50 million for a one-third interest in The Golf Channel, an Orlando-based cable operation that debuted 18 months ago.

Names in the News

Timo Liekoski resigned as coach of the Columbus Crew and was replaced by assistant Tom Fitzgerald for the remainder of the Major League Soccer season. Columbus is last in the 10-team league with a 6-16 record. . . . John Giannini, who led Rowan College in New Jersey to the Division III national basketball championship last season, has been hired by Maine. Giannini, 33, compiled a 168-38 record in eight seasons at Rowan. . . . Mike Skinner will replace replace seven-time champion Dale Earnhardt, who was injured in a crash last Sunday, in today’s Brickyard 400 Winston Cup stock car race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.